The Game Plan
Our voice and home team pride are needed more than ever with the Seahawks up for sale and the fate of the team at stake. In a league of billionaire owners, with a history of prospective owners threatening moves, and our own SuperSonic history to look back on, we can’t just wait to see how this pans out.
The only permanent solution is to go from being fans to being owners.
Here’s How It Will Work
Ms. Allen has created an amazing Seahawks organization, and we see a vital role for her to continue as an owner and leader of the team.
Through a massive show of public support, we can stand with Ms. Allen in proposing an amendment to the ownership rules to bring back a community ownership model to the NFL. This is possible! Recently the NFL changed the rules to allow private equity to become partial owners. So, why not fans?
We will build an organization —a home team cooperative—to create hundreds of thousands of shares available for purchase by residents of Pacific Northwest states that support the Seahawks in order to become a viable partial owner.
The organization would collaborate with Ms. Allen herself. This action will cement the Allen legacy as the true hometown owner and the primary owner representative of the team. If Ms. Allen no longer wishes to lead the team, we will work with other prospective buyers to create a viable co-ownership model.
The ownership collaborative would make an offer to the Allen Estate that could help it meet its duty to raise funds for charity.
While we don’t have all the answers, we know the outcome we want, and we know that when there’s a will there’s a way.
What else?
Paul G. Allen has already set a tremendous precedent by directing proceeds of the sale of his sports teams to philanthropy. If the NFL ultimately rejects a community-owned Seahawks, there’s no reason the Allen charities couldn’t make community ownership a priority for their philanthropic giving or engage community members and organizations in their charity through collaborative philanthropic giving.